When you read the general theme of my last post (‘Leave the Lie Detector At Home’), I’m guessing quite a few people had the same thought: “yeah, most of the time no-one’s lying or cheating, but what about that bunch of ****s from <insert rival team name here>?” Maybe your team doesn’t have a grudge match. Maybe you don’t have that one particular team who it’s HORRIBLE to play. That team that you anticipate the possible match up with before the tournament, even if they’re not in your pool. That team that you’d consider poking your eyes out rather than play ...

What I learned this week – Week 4: Using your axes Apologies for the lateness of this post, this term is racing away very quickly. At Monday night practice we have been trying out a series of fast-paced warm-up drills, one of which includes an intense version of the three-man/break-force where the marker marks for 10 successive throws (rather than the normal version where you throw then mark the person you threw to). This has the advantage that it makes you more tired and also enables you to focus on each element of the drill for an extended period of time. Faced with ...

This is probably the biggest thing I have changed in my own approach to calls, and it’s shockingly simple.   Nobody is lying to you. And nobody is cheating.   The fundamental assumption that people do not make calls they know to be untrue is integral to spirit of the game. The rules are written not to punish those who break the rules, but to make sure that whatever should have happened, does happen. Equally, they make the implicit assumption that people will not purposefully call things which are false. Let me just say it again. People do not call rubbish. Sometimes this assumption is hard ...

A few months ago during one of our practices Felix was berating us, the experienced players, for not helping freshers enough, people were not staying after the experienced practice and were not helping freshers. One thing he said at that moment still sticks with me and I think it will for a very long time. He had said “This is your way of giving back to the club, this is where you learned the game and now you give back by helping other people.”. These weren’t his exact words but you get the idea. For experienced players the importance of ...

Sunday 29th January 2012 was, for me, a day spent mostly in my pyjamas watching two phenomenal athletes battle for the prestige of becoming Australian Open Champion (in men’s tennis). I don’t use the word “battle” lightly, either. Near on 6 hours of gruelling competition resulting in Novak Djokovic taking the title and further cementing his position as the best player in tennis at the current time.The winner, to me at least, didn’t really matter. I enjoy watching tennis and didn’t mind either man winning (I was gunning for a Murray vs Federer final) and cared less about the result ...